Pam (24 page)

“Richie. No.
L
isten.”

“No
,
you listen. It’s over, Pam. It’s done. Over. There is
something
wrong with you. I
ignored
it, I hoped I was wrong. But I’m not. For the sake of my kids, I have to get them away from you.”

“You aren’t taking my kids!” I shouted.

“You won’t have a choice. Because tomorrow morning, you’re gonna t
ell Mandy when her friends leave
that we’re going to the store
,
and you and
I
are
going
to the cops.”

He opened the door and I lunged for him. “No. I swear to you. I haven’t lied. I didn’t kill …”

His voice growled in a low whisper when he placed his face close to mine. “For Mandy. Drop this now.
It’s her
birthday. I’m going to get beer.”

After he left, I stayed in the bedroom, trying to calm down.
I wasn’t crying.
I was angry.
Beyond angry. How could he accuse me of such things?

He wasn’t taking my children.
He
would never
get
my children
.
How could he
just take
me to the police for
something
I didn’t
do?

I left the bedroom and Mandy was perched in front
of her
vanity mirror. I walked downstairs and to the kitchen.

My mother was holding
Lizzy;
the water was running in the sink for her bath.

“Give me the baby
,
” I said.

“Pa
m.” She gave this stupid look
to me. Like she pitied me. “Pam, I’ll do it.”

“I can bathe my own baby.” I tested the water and placed Lizzy in.

“Pam. We’ll get
through
this. We will. I
’m
sure you just need help. This is not something you can blame on Sharon.”

“Why not.”

Her eyes closed. “
Please
.”

“So you know about this?”
My hands
worked
the
water.
“Daddy knows?”

Her eyes opened and widened. “Pam, stop.” She reached for Lizzy.

“How.” I groaned with anger. “How can he accuse
me?
” My voice
grew
raspier with my
emotions
.

“Pam!”

I swung out, pushing her hands
away;
I could bathe my own child. Damn her. Damn him. Fuck them all to hell. “No one is taking my kids from me. No one!”

“
Pam
!” She shrieked
loud
and
shrill,
reaching into the sink. “
Yo
u’r
e
drowning
the baby
!
”

I wouldn’t let her take her. I looked down
,
and Lizzy was submerged.

I released my grip and my mother grabbed the baby.

“Oh, God. Oh,
G
od.” She shook her gently. “I have to call for help.”

I stared out the window above the sink. I could hear her faintly crying to the baby. “Shut up
,
” I murmured. “Just …” I reached to the dish strainer, grabbed a knife, lifted it up
,
and as I shouted
,
“Shut up!” I sliced the knife through the air, hitting into my mother’s throat. Blood poured out, but she didn’t fall, she backed up.

“Pam! Stop
!
”

“Why? So you can take my kids!” I plunged down at her with the knife. Once, twice, I don’t know how many times. She held her arms over the baby, but I think I hit her, I’m not real sure. Not that it matter
ed;
the baby was dead.

Stabbing my mother was
n’t
like pounding meat. It wasn’t easy; the knife didn’t go through like
b
utter. I hit bone; I felt the
pain of that ricochet up my wri
st. How she took so many strikes
;
I don’t know
how many
. But she wouldn’t go down. She was saturated in blood, still holding the baby.

When her knees finally buckled, I heard a
s
cream.

Doyle screamed.

He
saw me, turned
,
and ran.

“
Oh
no
you
don’t
.”

All I felt was desperation
mixed with anger and a
sense
of being
so far
out of control, I just wanted my life done.

Done.

It was over.
Everything
was
over
. Richie wasn’t going to enjoy the kids,
my
kids
,
when I was
locked
away.

I caught Doyle as he ran for the stairs.

He
was an easy catch.

My hand went to his head; I pushed him down and took his life on those stairs.

He didn’t move, he didn’t fight.

As I stood, I saw Mandy at the stop of the steps. Her hair was done for the
party;
she was wearing her new dress and
was
even
wearing my
lipstick.

She watched it all
,
and then she flew back into her room.

How dare she? How ungrateful. I did everything for her
.
A
ll of this was her fault.

Her door didn’t have a lock, but she tried to hold it closed.

She cried from the other side, “Mommy, don’t. Mommy
,
please.”

But I was victorious and shoved open the door. She ran about her room, trying to get away, and when she climbed for the
window,
I caught her.

I got her.

She cried and begged
for
me to stop. It didn’t matter. Nothing matter
ed
. I failed to think. To reason. To care. I was focused on only ending it all.

“Mommy, please
,
”
s
he cried. “Mommy,
n
o. Mommy
,
stop. Mommy!”

Over.

The events of that final tragic day had finally come forward in my mind. They were so horrendous, so inhumane, that I refused to believe that I had
committed
them. I placed them so far in the back of my mind that I buried them with the grief over my family. What I did, how I felt that day, pummeled me, all of it. I begged in my mind that the trigger would not let me bury the
memories
again.
I didn’t deserve the freedom of not remember
ing
.
I
d
es
erved
the pain and the guilt over what I had done.

I wanted to die, but I didn’t deserve to die.
I deserved to spend the rest of my life remembering what I did.

The police and paramedics finally arrived. I wanted to speak to Justin,
tell
him I was sorry. He looked so forgiving
,
yet
lost. I just stared at him.

Dr.
Hathaway
helped me to my feet. “It’s time, Pam.”

I nodded. “What about Sharon?”

He looked at me oddly. “You don’t get it?”

“No
.
I mean she was there. Right?”

“
Yes
.
But  ...
” He opened a folder and pulled out on
e
more sheet of paper. “Dr. Andrews too
k
this picture.”

I felt disgust when I looked
upon
her face.

“Who is this?” Dr. Hathaway asked.

“It’s Sharon.” I answered.

“No, Pam. It’s you
.
Look again. It’s always been you
.”

My head filled with a bloody rush
;
I swore I was going to pass out.

The air felt shallow.

“There is no physical
Sharon
,” he explained.

Oh, God. I saw it. Me on the floor as a child with that broken doll house.

“Who did this?” my mother asked.

“Sharon.”

“You
create
d
her
,
Pam
,
when you
were
very young. She was what you weren’t. She was everything you wanted to be.”

‘
Lou
, she’s been
dressing
like her.
Acting like her.
She doesn’t know. I swear.” My mother said to my father.

“Then we’ll take her to doctors. We’ll make it right.”

“Sharon became such a part of your life,” Dr. Hathaway
explained. “
When the best doctors couldn’t get her
to go
away
,
e
veryone
accepted
her
.”

I didn’t believe it. It couldn’t be. “She’s real
,
”
I said.
“
Sharon is real.”

“Yes, she is. Because you made her real. Her father, your father. The same
man
.
You, Pam, are Sharon.
”

I ached out a moan
that
day
. That fateful day, as they escorted me out of my home
,
I saw my father in his police uniform,
hold
ing
my mother’s body, holding my infa
n
t daughter.
He wept.
I broke him. He was never the same after that.

As hard a
s
it was for me to believ
e, I faced the reality
that I alone was responsible for destroying too many lives.

It was eas
ier
to pass it off on Sharon than it was to accept it. I wasn’t quite sure I did one hundred percent accept it, but I didn’t have a choice.

Too much proof was presented to me. Proof in the form of memories.

All I ever wanted was to know who killed my children.

I got my answer.

It was me.

I was fortunate that my injuries were not severe
,
n
o organ damage
,
and my recovery time was less than two weeks.

My physical recovery.

Mentally, I believe
d
I was off and needed a break.
I
agreed
to a short leave of
absence, intense
treatment
and drug therapy with James
;
in exchange
,
he would not turn me over to the
B
oard.

I don’t know if that was a good idea. My obsession and own illness progressed a situation to the point of explosion.

I was lucky
;
so was Justin. Both of us could have been killed.

Like Pam, I justified Sharon because I saw her as a separate entity. A different person, even though I knew she wasn’t.

She was the
flamboyant
, sexy, daring woman that Pam wasn’t.

I justified it, just like Richie’s father did.

Pam’s medical records indicated that she had created Sharon when she was three. It went from the typical imaginary friend to more. By the time Pam was ten, she was acting out as Sharon. A
t thirteen, she was having black
outs. She had been
through
treatment, was
institutionalized, but nothing kept Sharon away. Pam always brought her back.

It got
to the point that
the family just went with it, not wanting to shock Pam or cause her more harm.

They treated Sharon like a different person.

Neither
personality knew what the other was doing when they were apart. It was a remarkable case.

When Pam was being
Sharon
and doing her own thing, such as being with me
,
Pam’s mind created a mental alibi.

I never got to
witness
them together. Never got to
visually
witness her personality split. But they did
, I heard
,
argu
e
with each other, carried on
conversations
,
and even changed voices.

For as much as Pam’s alter personality of Sharon was
a staunch
contrast to her own, the
ir
lives were remarkably similar.

Both of them had a sister. Pam’s father was the actual Chief of
P
olice, but she bestowed that honor unto Sharon,
imagin
ing her own
father
as a
patrolman
.

Both were pregnant with a son.

Both had their sons taken away.

Ironically, both of the boys had the same father. And it wasn’t Richie.

An affair was had with
Richie’s
father, but it was Pam who slept with him.
Rich
S
enior tol
d Richie of the affair and
that Mandy was his child
,
not Richie’s.

The information Richie gave to Pam sent her over that final edge.

It was all a twisted situation that many took advantage of. Pam’s father
-
in
-
law. Her husband sought out
Sharon
for the daring sexual side, and I even I aided in that abuse.

I was curious and worried about Pam. I asked about her often. She consumed my life before she was a patient and even more so after
wards
.

Following four months of therapy and a break from patients, James Hathaway felt I was in a good enough place—mentally—to visit Pam at the State
Hospital
.

I was anxious and a little excited about it.

He room was far from the others, an isolation room. Again, she was kept from
the
general population.

“You just missed Justin,” James said. “This is his visiting day. He comes faithfully, once a week.”

“How is he doing with all this?”

“Fine. Great. A little denial. He believes his mother will be healed. But he hasn’t given up on her
,
and that is good for Pam.”

I peered through the observation window at her. “She looks well.”

Pam
sat in a chair b
y
the barred window. Her feet were on the window sill as she stared out.

“She does.” James replied.

“Does she talk much?” I asked.

“Quite a lot. Not like she was when she was here the first time.”

“Outbursts?” I asked.

“Nothing violent … yet.” James answered. “She … the trigger didn’t stay.”

I inwardly cringed. “No. I’m sorry.”

“We thought it would. It stayed for a while
,
and then she buried it. She buried it good.”

I sighed out.

“We even tried the word again,
but
it didn’t work.”

“You’ll get it again.”

“I’m confident.”

“What about the
other personality?” I questioned. “Any sign
?
”

“Buried as well. We haven’t seen or
heard
of a second personality in a
while
.”

“That’s good
,
” I said brightly.

“
Well  ...
that remains to be seen.
” He reached for the doo
r, unlocked it
,
and opene
d
it. “Go say hello. See for yourself.”

James was sending me in that room as a form of
therapy
. I knew it. H
e
didn’t say. I had to face my demons. My crimes. I swallowed the lump in my throat and walked toward her.

How would Pam react? Would she even remember that she was angry with me the last
time
we
spoke?

A part of me hoped
she did
, because I wanted to apologize.

“Hi,” I called
out softly. “Can we
talk?
”

She turned around from the chair
,
and then a huge smile brightened her face. “Desmond, please, join me for the view.” She held out her hand and faced the window again.

I didn’t take her hand, but I stood next to the chair. “How are you?”

“I’m
good
. They have me here and say I committed these
horrible
crimes. I
didn’t. One day I’ll
find
out who did.”

“You will
,
” I told her.
“Do you remember what happened
the last
time
we spoke?”

Her head hung. “I do. And I’m sorry for the way I acted. Forgive me?”

“I do. Do you forgive me?” I asked.

She crossed her leg over the one that rested on the window sill, exposing her thigh and calf. “Absolutely.”

“Well, I can’t stay. I just wanted to stop in, say hello, and see how you are.”

“It was good seeing you,” she said. “Will you be by again?”

“I think I might have to make this a regular stop when I’m here at the hospital.”

“I’d like that.”

“Me too.” I nodded, back
ed
up, touched her shoulder
,
and
turned
. I left the room, meeting James in the hallway.

“Well?” James asked.

“How long has Sharon been back?”

“For about
three months
. We haven’t seen Pam since.
How was it for you?” James questioned. “Anything? Waves?”

I shook my head. “Nope. All good. Nothing.
”

He sighed out and rest a hand on my back. “Glad to hear.”

It wasn’t all true. I did feel a slight wave when I saw her leg. But it could have been a passing thing
because I wasn’t feeling it any
more as I walked away. I would need to visit her again to find out, to test again.

I would.

I peered over my shoulder to Pam’s room. Or rather Sharon’s room. Pam was gone. Probably the reality of everything was too much for her to handle. How long she would be buried was unknown. Time would tell.

The quest for closure was granted to Pam. She found her truth
;
that’s all she wanted. In a sense, in her own way she was dealing with that truth. Locked away somewhere, facing her own demons, handling it in her own way
.

But it wasn’t over for Pam or any of us. It would never be over. Not as long as Sharon was still around and kept her vigilant watch over Pam.